The Nahia Journals: Coming Home
by Elenhiia
Summary: The first in my series of one-shots about my New Worlds Ateraan character Nahia. In her early days in Gahlen, she comes to terms with some hard truths and even harder unanswered questions ...


I turned southward out of the tavern door, waving and smiling and laughing at some joke I immediately forgot. I wove my way in and out of knots of people as I made my way down the side of the street, thinking of the years I'd spent learning not to be knocked down, or stepped on, or ...

I couldn't keep my brain distracted anymore. Good humor was how I dealt with everything. But what happens when you have none of it left? I felt heartsick, confused, off-balance, and didn't even know why.

Not for the first time I wondered if I was on the right path still-if I had let myself be pushed, or if I had let myself be directed. And he'd seen right to the heart of that, I mused, whether on accident or not. Or maybe he could read my features, maybe I was transparent for my kind. I thought in my own language, so I could speak it, but so many of the finer points of my world remained stubbornly locked away. Maybe it was obvious for any gnome to see that I was fighting a losing battle. Maybe ...

No one else could, as far as I knew. I debated momentarily on whether that was a good thing or not. A flash of resentment entered my mind, and left as quickly as it came. How could I blame other people for not seeing the truth when I manipulated their impressions so deftly (most of the time)? And would I even want to? No, I thought, my life is already exposed to the world. I don't need my pain in the same place. The deception was on me-me, and anyone else who did the same-and I would carry it.

As my footsteps carried me through the center of town, I pushed that train of thought out of my mind. I couldn't do anything productive with maybes. I couldn't do anything productive with resentment. And I couldn't do anything productive thinking about that ... enigma ... either.

Yes, I thought to his face in my mind's eye, Enigma is a good name for you. I think I shall call you that.

No response, of course-I'd be worried if there had been. He was still wakeful. Would I have wanted to make that thought strong enough to be a send? I laughed inwardly. Definitely not. Better not talk to enigmas about their enigmatic properties until you'd puzzled more of them out. Enigmas needed to be handled in such a way that they didn't find out what you thought until you deemed the time right.

This enigma might be beyond my abilities though, I thought drily, and pushed him out of my mind too.

I can't keep this up.

The thought came unbidden to my mind, one in a trail of breadcrumbs I'd followed many times before now. Fighting a growing sense of hopeless repetition, I thought that now was just as likely to fail or succeed as any other time. Just because something had happened ten times before didn't make success less likely the next time. I would just have to try harder, feel around the catches in my mind, find the right one ...

Vanterron's advice in mind, I paused at the library doors. I glanced around suddenly, in a vain hope that the answer would present itself-not simply to my task question, but to the burning empty space that I needed so much to find the missing pieces for.

I walked inside, my feet finding their way through inner rooms of their own accord. Later I would think that my body must have known where to go, even if my heart did not.

Sitting at the stream's edge, one hand trailing in the cool, crystal clear water and the other balancing the top edge of a parchment on my knee, I reflected on the irony of writing my mage presentation in the druid guildroom. That question refused to leave the back of my mind-was I going the right direction? It usually stayed for a few days, when it found a chink in my armor and got in again.

I breathed slowly, force of habit alone keeping my expression schooled in to the one I'd adopted-smiling, intent, absently kind. Everything I wanted to project. But projection is just a natural part of being a person, I reasoned. Moping over it can get a person nowhere.

Another question floated unbidden up from the recesses of my mind. Had I seen other faces like mine? Had I looked in to eyes better at playing the enigma game than me? I wasn't trying to be an enigma though, I was just trying to turn so that only certain facets were visible at certain times. Was that the same thing?

A pair of bright eyes looked back at me from my mind's view, merry almost-glowing ones that crinkled around their edges. I closed my own eyes in a fruitless attempt to block them out. I didn't know what to do with that emotion-I didn't know what it was! And after the teasing I'd taken, smiling, in the tavern earlier, I wasn't about to take it in this category from people who couldn't understand emotional distinctions. They could tease me about Kyndrid and Eletha all they wanted, because I knew how I felt about both-fiercely loyal, warm and supportive. Those feelings were clear-cut and easy to understand, so for a moment I let myself be wrapped in those thoughts of companionship and good humor.

But I didn't understand this one. I didn't think it was what people would assume it was, but I also couldn't name it in my defense. And puzzling that out was the last thing I needed to do, with my task in hand.

The eyes blinked at me, quiet, of their own accord-impossible to figure out, as if I hadn't conjured them from my subconscious and the roil of questions to which I had no answers.

Just let go, they said to me, as if confused at my confusion. Accept your internal seasons. These things come and go, often with no answer at all. What shame is there in that?

You know something I don't, I told them, and one day I will ask you what that thing is.

A face shimmered in to being around the eyes-creased, warm, smiling a knowing smile. No one is stopping you, you know, they said. What's the worst that could happen?

Oh, Lenaia, I thought to myself. You sent me to find my world and a healer. And the healers have already told me they can't do anything for me.

What's the worst that could happen?

I faced those eyes squarely. Not one to let things hide from me in my own mind, I let that face conjure up its impressions and emotions and confusion. Who are you, that you can throw my equilibrium off without doing anything?

There was an internal nudge, as if I were growing closer to something I'd been chasing.

Let go, Nahia. Stop this needless complication. Let your seasons turn, they are meant to, and you are obstructing them! When you have done that, then I know you will ask what you want to ask, because when you have done that, you will know what that question is. When you have asked, you will understand a little more of what I do.

If you're going to stick to my mind and poke at my internal dilemma, then answer my task question! Should a school teach morality, or reason alone?

The eyes laughed at me, silently but kindly, corners crinkled in a genuine smile. I almost wanted to resent that kindness, because I couldn't armor myself against it. But I let the urge float away, let myself watch those warm dancing eyes. It was a bright moment. How could I turn a bright moment negative when so many dark ones had already passed?

Now you're getting somewhere, the eyes said gently. And Nahia, you already know the answer to that question. That's the easiest question before you.

I paused a moment longer, as my inner resistance eroded under the unflagging warmth in that gaze. Two tears squeezed their way through my tightly-closed eyelids. This release I was building up to was one which was long overdue. Questions fell away like flakes of stone, fog cleared away like blowing rock dust, and cracks appeared in my pain as it began, finally, to tear itself away.

For an instant, I thought I felt the pressure of a hand on my shoulder, warm support steadying my mind. And, my unnatural armor breaking, I leaned in to it, not caring what the emotion meant, not trying to solve a puzzle. Only existing, believing, feeling safe.

I'm talking to my subconscious. I hope I'm not sending. Or being sent back to ...

Wouldn't you hope you would get this response?

You didn't give a negative or an affirmative.

But, and the eyes winked, you didn't ask a question.

I laughed softly, a tightness in my chest I hadn't realized was there easing. Thank you, I said to the smiling face, for everything.

You needed it, it replied simply. Why should I not give it?

I sat like that for another moment. Bright eyes looked on me calmly, but this time I didn't tense up under their gaze.

Responsibility.

The word floated up out of my mind with such startling clarity that I thought, for a moment, I really had been sending. I frantically reviewed the glowing nexus of my links. Nothing. I breathed a sigh of relief.

The eyes crinkled again. Wouldn't you like to have this conversation, though?

I'm not answering that question to you, I shot back. Just in case.

I pulled my hand out of the water. In it was a single river stone, oval-shaped, glossy on one side from years of motion. Gleaming wet and gray in the light, it was a simple answer to a simple question. I let it settle slowly back in to the water and dried my hand off.

I turned back to my parchment, letting the answer flow out of me, words moving like an unbroken line out of some hidden reserve I hadn't known I had. It was always like this for me-realizations came slow, but complete. In this moment, as I wrote, I was grateful for them all. Avoid absolutes, I thought as I wrote. Avoid absolutes, and be mindful of the twilight edge, the place where one thing ends and another begins. I held this firmly in my mind as words marched down the page beneath my hand.

Before I knew it, I was blinking down at a completed piece of work, and a voice in the back of my mind seemed to echo with gentle humor, Now you see what happens when you stop resisting?

My eyes followed the line of the river to the altar sitting quietly at its end, and suddenly all of his veiled hints clicked in to place. Whether he was my subconscious speaking to me, a manifestation of Ateraan itself, or the person himself, in that moment I neither knew nor cared.

I felt hands on my shoulders again, but didn't dare look up-just in case, not wanting to shatter the half-real moment.

"Avoid absolutes," a voice said over my shoulder. "Isn't that just what you were saying?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. In my heart, something was unwinding, a long coil of knotted emotions trailing away from me, making it easier to breathe, making me fit better in my own skin.

"Go on," he said gently. "Why are you here?"

"For the answer," I replied, "the one you gave to me. I was so afraid of religious fanaticism ... but this, this feels like coming home."

The presence behind me shifted, the hands remaining steady. "Why?"

"Because ... so many reasons," I began, not realizing I was speaking aloud. "That responsibility I'll have to bear, as a mage, is one. Because it lets me know that I don't have to fight anymore ... I'm already home. So long as I'm here, so long as I'm close to this world, so long as I can do right by it, whatever good or bad luck comes ... I lived and died safe in the care of the same great, loving, fickle, terrible, beautiful, endless entity which has taken care of each of us ..."

The pressure increased momentarily. "And Ateraan knows this," he said. "Take your time coming home. Home knows you are coming. Home isn't going anywhere."

I breathed in, and dared to ask. "And you?"

He laughed quietly. "I'm not going anywhere either."

"That isn't an answer," I said, smiling, knowing what was coming.

"But," he said, and the face in my mind winked again, "you didn't ask the right question."

The dam broke in a singular, complete loss of control, one moment of brilliant emotion, uncertainty, joy and sorrow, its poignant mixture shaking me to the core. I trembled beneath the hands that may or may not have been there, laughing and crying and knowing, with total awareness, what it was that I was searching for.

"Lean back," he told me softly. I blinked, uncomprehending, and began turning my face. I felt one lined, weathered hand touch the side of my cheek, redirecting me to face forward with the most minimal contact. "No, Nahia. Lean back."

And so I did. 


End file.
